2011 Week 1
September 7, 2011
College football has finally returned and I'm excited to bring you my observations on the 2011 season.
When the season starts everyone seems to wonder what I was up to during the long off-season. This year I was invited to spend the spring and summer on the beach at Sanibel Island in Florida. The tourism bureau there offered me plenty of money to sit out on a secluded beach.
Sanibel Island is legendary for their seashells but a storm last winter washed away a lot of the shells. So they paid me to sit there in the sun, get burned, then as my skin peeled and hardened, it formed new attractive shells, especially if it was the colorful skin over my liver spots. Speaking of my spotted liver, they kept me going with preferred Stoli IV.
I did hear my good friend Evan Maisel on ESPN radio talk about fixing college football by putting someone in charge like Pete Rozelle does for the NFL. He suggested that I would be a good fit for the job.
Now I've often thought about being college football's Kommissar. I'm disgusted by the recent scandals involving legendary powerhouse programs like Oregon, Auburn, Ohio State, and Duke. The Blue Devils may be the worst -- in a crooked attempt to win at all costs, they were caught providing 85 of their players with over $10 million in money for educational needs. I'd stomp that out right now and go back to the days where players would earn money through hard work, the way my football player friends at Pitt did: in the kitchens of sororities and the bedrooms of fraternities.
The other big issue I'd take on would be conference realignment. The biggest news over the summer was Nebraska's move to the Big Ten. This left the other teams in the Midlands in a quandry. My proposal would be for the 9-team Southwest Conference to merge with the remaining teams in the Big Eight to form a 16-team super conference.
The 16-team leagues are the new "in" things, and the other big leagues like the SEC, the Big Ten, the Pac-8, and the Big Sky conference are all looking to expand as well. The SEC is already chasing after the Texas Aggies even though, ethically, I would argue that SMU would be a better fit in the SEC than the Aggie boys from Austin.
The games last weekend themselves were mostly pretty lame. The most exciting game was TCU's matchup with Baylor. The Bears jumped out to a huge lead over their SWC archrivals, but the TCU Horny Toads made a stunning comeback from a 24-point deficit, thanks to scoring touchdowns and 2-point conversions. Baylor did hold on for a 2-point win in overtime.
I'm still not sure about these overtime rules. Baylor scored and went for two points for an 8-point lead. Then TCU apparently scored but for some reason lined up for a very long extra point, which I thought would have left them behind by 1 point and thus they would lose. It was a moot issue because they missed the kick. Maybe they get two points for a long extra point in overtime, these rule changes are tough to keep up with.
The annual Big Ten/MAC showdown has expanded along with the Big Ten. Instead of just playing MAC teams like Western Michigan, Akron, Northern Iowa, and Youngstown State, there's a new Big Ten/Tennessee showdown. Brand new Big Ten member Nebraska beat Tennessee-Chattanooga, Iowa beat Tennessee Tech, and Purdue beat Middle Tennessee State. The Volunteer State's pride was upheld by satellite campus Tennessee-Knoxville, which beat the newest Big Ten member Montana.
Tennessee-Nashville, also known as Vanderbilt, did not partake in the challenge, as they beat up on a small school in North Carolina named Elon. Vandy should be above playing girls' colleges.
I had thought the NFL wasn't starting until next week, but I noticed that the Steelers pounded the Bills last Saturday.
The other big story of the weekend was the weather. The Midwest got hit by a couple days' worth of thunderstorms. The Michigan vs. Western Michigan game was called early. The Michigan defense looked much improved but, after seeing him waddling on the sideline, I'd suggest a diet for coach Rodriguez.
The Thomas Jefferson State showdown between Marshall and Western Virginia was delayed several times by lightning and was finally called after lightning hit a couch and burned down half of Morgantown.
Lightning delays also greatly lengthened Notre Dame's opener vs. South Florida, which was eventually won by SFU. It must have been really exciting for the boys from Tampa to win a game in South Bend for Coach Holtz. I must say, from what I saw on TV, that the improved diet and new hairpiece greatly improved the appearance of Coach Lou.
So everyone break out the recliners, the beer, and the Depends and let's toast another great season of college football. See you next week.